Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series Book 3)

by Cindy Brandner

  Time abandoned her, minutes blurred into an agony that seemed eons in the making. There was only the primal struggle that took one across the boundary between life and death and reduced everything in the universe to bare essentials. She could hear the woman’s voice, encouraging her, reassuring her that only a few more pushes would see this child into the world. All the world was this ring of fiery pain and all she wanted was to come out the other side of it.

  Her body strained to the point of breaking and suddenly there was the precipitous drop in pressure and pain… and the small sounds of the newly born.

  “Tis a girl. I’m goin’ to wrap her up in my coat an’ then go for help.”

  The woman used her own mouth to clear the baby’s nose and laid her on Pamela’s stomach, the cord between mother and daughter still pulsating with life. Pamela reached down a hand, shaky with relief and fear and the heady exhilaration of having just given birth, and touched the small, firm body of her daughter.

  She looked up at the woman, a question written plainly on her face.

  The woman nodded. “She’s fine—healthy an’ a good weight. Now stay ye still with yer wee lass an’ I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

  Exhausted and bloody, with the fragrance of birth heavy in the air around them, Pamela settled herself, with her daughter snug to her chest, against the bulwark of the tree to wait for help to arrive.

  She didn’t want to uncover the baby, for the breeze that blew had a cool edge. But her wee face poked out of the coat, perfect as a petal, framed in hair that was dark and slick with amniotic fluid. Pamela suspected when it dried it would wisp into a corona of curls just like Casey’s. Then the baby opened her mouth small face bunching up like a tiny wrinkled cabbage and let go a howl that shook the birds from the trees. Her lungs were healthy to be certain, and wee feminine self notwithstanding, she had the look of her father about her.

  Above the wind had settled, the sun came out again, dazzling the raindrops into diamonds while the leaves overhead swayed gently. For a moment, just a second, she thought she saw the face there, outlines shimmering in the air, of the mother of all—a face indescribably old and equally as beautiful. And she gave profound thanks to that force, the very root of life itself, which had delivered this particular flower safely through the green fuse of life.

  Casey Riordan arrived home to find the place bustling with females. Peg and a woman he did not recognize were busy in the wee kitchen, the scent of a trout baking and potatoes steaming on the air. His heart had been in his throat since Father Terry had come to find him and tell him that he was a father once again, his wife having given birth in the middle of the bloody forest.

  At the sight of his raised eyebrow and tentative greeting, Peg said, “She’s in the bedroom an’ all is well. Go on through, man.”

  Heart thumping hard, he entered the room to find his wife sitting up against well-plumped pillows, head bent in rapt absorption over a tiny bundle. Conor was snuggled into his mother’s side, eyes wide with wonder.

  His eyes met Pamela’s and he shook his head. “Jaysus woman, yer goin’ to give me a heart attack with yer antics one of these days, ye know that?”

  She smiled, face drawn with exhaustion but lit from within by that distinctive glow new mothers always wore.

  “Come and meet your daughter,” she said quietly, moving the blanket away from the baby’s face.

  “My daughter?” he queried and went to kneel by the bed.

  There were no signs on the baby of her dramatic entrance into the world. She was the color of a pink pearl, delicately flushed, hair a tiny corona of black curls. She finished eating with a small smacking sound and a tiny hand came up out of the blanket, waving about as though she sensed a new arrival. Pamela handed Casey the small, red-wrapped bundle.

  “Here she is, Daddy.”

  Casey held his daughter close to his chest, the warm, soft weight of her dispelling the last of his fear.

  “D’ye think just once, ye might try givin’ birth in a hospital with a doctor to hand?” he asked in the aggrieved tone of a man who never could expect to find his wife in the place where he had left her.

  “I hardly planned it this way,” Pamela retorted, “but all turned out well. Oh, look, her eyes are open.”

  Casey looked down and found himself gazing into the darkest, most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen. The baby was squinting at him—in the way that newborns do, her small mouth a round ‘O’ as she cooed at him.

  “Oh, an’ who’s a love then, angel?” Casey cooed back.

  “That’s you done for, man,” Pamela said, smiling at the picture of her big husband and wee daughter.

  “Well, look at her, will ye? No man will ever stand a chance. We make awfully beautiful babies if I do say so myself.”

  He gathered Conor onto his knee with his free hand, tucking him in snugly next to his sister, wanting him to know he had not been forgotten in the excitement.

  “Well, laddie, what d’ye think of yer wee sister?”

  “She’s aw’fly small,” Conor said, looking dubiously at the tiny creature on his father’s arm.

  Casey smiled down at his son’s tousled head. “Aye, she’s small now, but before ye know it, she’ll be big enough to play with ye.”

  Conor looked up at his father with doubt written plain on his features that so small a creature could ever be counted upon to play, and then slid off his knee with the pronouncement, “I’s hungy,” and headed off to the kitchen where he knew the women would feed him.

  “D’ye think we ought to call a doctor in, just to be certain yerself an’ the baby are alright?” he asked.

  “No, we’re both fine. The woman who found me in the forest is the local midwife. You will have seen her in the kitchen. What are the odds that she would be out walking in the woods at the same time I was? She’s checked both Isabelle and me out and we’re fine.”

  Isabelle had been a long ago ancestor of Casey’s, and Pamela had picked it out as the only name she wanted should the baby be a girl.

  “Look at us, will ye?” he said softly, for the baby was asleep again in that abrupt way newborns have, eyelids of domed pearl closed tight against the world in which she had so abruptly arrived. “All domesticated.”

  Pamela’s eyes met his and held. There were words that could be said, but did not need to be spoken aloud, for their shared understanding was such as to make it unnecessary. It had not always been an easy journey, this marriage of theirs, but it had been worth every step taken to have brought them here to this place.

  He leaned forward and kissed her, breathing in her scent in all its complexity; the fresh green of it, the sweet milkiness of motherhood and the salt notes of extreme physical exertion.

  She took his hand in her own and he knew she felt his fear, the worry of what giving birth alone and stranded in the woods might have resulted in.

  “It’s alright, Casey,” she laughed shakily. “I wouldn’t choose to do it that way again, but it’s alright now.”

  “Yer the point on which this universe of ours turns, Jewel—don’t ye forget it.”

  “I won’t. Same goes for you, man.”

  He squeezed her hand and leaned his forehead against her own. Between them, the baby snorted in her sleep and pursed her lips as though in disapproval. Around them the evening settled in, warm and safe, beating at its core with the heart of this, the life they had created together.

  Chapter Seventy-one

  August 1975

  Summer’s End

  Pat spent the summer living at Casey and Pamela’s house, telling himself it was easier to tend to the animals and the garden and house if he simply lived there. Notwithstanding the fact that Lewis and Owen had assured him they could divide the chores between them if he wanted to get back to Belfast and his life there. The truth was, part of the attraction
of staying on the premises was the proximity to Kate’s home. Not that he could visit her, not that he dared visit her, but more often than not she found a way to the house in the hollow several times a week. Though her brother disapproved of her friendship with Pamela, still he didn’t outright forbid it. A friendship with himself, Pat knew, was likely to be another matter altogether. Though were he being scrupulously honest with himself, he wasn’t sure what he and Kate had was, strictly speaking, a friendship. He had plenty of time to think about it, being that he was lucky to find one functioning channel on his brother’s television and the radio was almost as quixotic in its reception. He had managed to distract himself a couple of evenings by reading a volume of fairytales that appeared to have been written by Jamie. Other than that, he found his mind wasn’t willing to be diverted from its preferred course, which appeared to have settled itself around Kate.

  She was, he thought, the most maddening woman he had ever met. Stubborn to a degree that even he and his brother might have baulked at, headstrong, frustrating, pushy and with an extremely firm opinion on her at all times. Oh, the woman could hold her tongue when she wanted to put a freeze on a man, but she rarely deigned to keep it still otherwise. She had the Fair Housing Office working with an efficiency that would soon render him obsolete and she had sorted him out here too as to regular meals, ironed clothing and adequate sleep. And yet—and here was where the damned honesty with himself came in—he didn’t seem to be leaving or telling her to mind her own business and let him be.

  He was rather sad that the summer was coming to an end, in fact, as it would put paid to their quiet evenings in Casey and Pamela’s house. He did miss his brother and Pamela, especially wee Conor and now, Miss Isabelle, but their return would change things.

  He had taken Kate with him to visit the new baby one Saturday and they had a lovely day of it, wandering the shore with the wee family and endlessly admiring the baby. They had stayed to dinner and the talk had flowed easily around the table, well peppered with laughter and the music of the two women’s voices and the sweet cooing of the baby. Casey was a good father and Conor went to his Daddy as often as his Mam, but watching Casey with Isabelle was something else altogether, for the man was utterly and totally besotted with his beautiful baby girl. Pat was vastly relieved that his brother had healed up and was entirely back in his own skin, both physically and emotionally. Watching all of them, healthy, happy and whole, he thought it was a pity, much as he would miss them, that they didn’t stay there in Kerry forever.

  The two brothers found themselves alone in the kitchen after dinner. Pamela was rocking an overly stimulated Conor to sleep and Kate was cuddling Isabelle. Casey and Pat were doing the washing up.

  So well did Patrick know his brother that he only waited for the raised eyebrow in his direction before saying, “Don’t be after makin’ too much of it. I only asked her to come down because she was mad to visit the baby.”

  “I didn’t say a thing,” Casey protested, though not with a great deal of vehemence.

  “No, but yer thinkin’ it.”

  “Yer as bad as Pamela, thinkin’ ye know every thought that flits through my head.”

  “In this case, I do know,” Pat said, “so don’t be thinkin’ I’ve got some grand romance goin’. We’re just friends.”

  “Then ye’d best be careful, boyo, because she’s not lookin’ at yerself as though yer merely a pal.”

  “She’s not,” Pat said with some irritation, “lookin’ at me at all.”

  Casey flicked soapsuds in his brother’s direction. “Ye know what I mean, ye wee smartarse.”

  Pat did not reply, for he was beginning to be aware that Kate’s feelings were not entirely platonic. But he wasn’t sure if he was ready to face just what that meant, for he could not think of a woman in that way without seeing Sylvie in his mind’s eye and the price she had paid for loving him. Casey, sensing his discomfort, had dropped the subject and continued to wash the dishes, chatting mildly about the garden, the weather and the children.

  Only his brother’s words could not be unspoken, and they had stayed in his mind ever since. It was at times such as these that he missed his father. Truth be told he missed the man always, but especially when he wanted Brian there to tell him what to do. Not that his father would have, but he might have led a man in the right direction. After a certain age Brian had told both of his sons, ‘If yer askin’ for my permission, ye don’t need it any longer. If yer askin’ for my approval, ye won’t necessarily get it.’

  It was a night a few weeks after their visit to Kerry. Kate had not been in to work that day as she stayed at the farm on Fridays through the weekend. He often wondered how she explained her days in the city, but she didn’t speak of it so he did not ask. Sometimes this summer, she would be waiting for him on those Friday evenings, seated neatly outside the door on the bench under the overhang of the porch where Casey sat to remove his dirty workboots, or in the barn fussing over that demon horse, Phouka, who seemed to be only slightly less enamored with Kate than he was with Pamela.

  A storm was coming in when he got home, the air near to crackling with it. He could feel it all along his nerve endings, like quicksilver chasing in rivulets over his skin. The bench beside the porch overhang was empty and he felt a pang of disappointment. Perhaps she would not come this evening. It wasn’t as though they had a standing appointment, after all.

  He fed and watered the animals, which went some way toward alleviating the hum in his body that he told himself was entirely due to the impending weather. There was a homely comfort in mixing Paudeen’s feed and tending to Phouka’s stall. Phouka was grazing in Mr. Guderson’s field and would only be in for the night. Rusty followed him about the entire time, meowing and generally making a feline nuisance of himself.

  Inside he made himself eggs and sausage for dinner, looking out the window every few minutes to check, he told himself, the advance of the storm. The wind had picked up considerably and the clouds on the horizon were black outlined in silver. It was going to be a terrible one. He was going to have to catch that demon, Phouka, and put him up in the barn.

  Phouka, like the bad fairy for whom he had been named, proved very hard to catch and cantered around the field neighing and kicking his heels up. The rain broke just as Pat, sweating and swearing, got him into the barn and settled for the night. The horse gave one long last whinny as Pat shut the barn door and then the rain broke in a deluge so thick that he could hardly see across the yard. The dash to the house was enough to leave him dripping in the entryway beyond the porch.

  He stripped off his shirt and pants in the boot room and dried down with the towel Pamela left there for the purpose. There was an old flannel shirt of Casey’s hanging on a hook and he shrugged it on over his damp skin. He put on clean blue jeans and filled the kettle, thinking he should probably do some reading as outdoor work was going to be out of the question for the rest of the night. It was dark as the underside of a nun’s habit out there already and the rain pounded the earth, the sound echoing back up like a thousand military drums. His skin still felt as though quicksilver ran beneath it, crackling and dividing, making him as restless as the trees and animals. He reached for his books nonetheless, a good hour of reading about torts law ought to bleed the restlessness right out of him. He was only just settled so when several things happened at once.

  Thunder boomed so loudly it rattled the thatch of the roof. Rusty bolted hissing off the kitchen sofa, tripping Pat, who had risen from his chair, as he shot across the floor. Pat knocked his head hard on a post. The lights went out and there was a knock on the porch door. He was clutching his head, biting down on calling the cat several unflattering names as he opened the door. Through the haze of pain in his head he saw Kate, clutching a bag to her chest. The light outside was blue and she was outlined as though someone had taken a luminous pen to her and drawn her bold against the wild nigh
t. He pulled her in, and slammed the door behind her. Her very arm seemed to hum with the storm’s electricity where he touched her.

  He was as blind as Kate in the dark that clapped down inside the house but he took her by the hand and guided her carefully into the kitchen. He rummaged about, stubbing his toes and cursing under his breath, until he found the box of candles his brother kept handy for emergencies and lit a few of them, scattering them around the kitchen.

  “Are ye mad, out in the storm like this? How the hell did ye get here?” he asked, an irrational wave of anger washing over him at her foolhardiness. “Come sit by the Aga an’ I’ll get ye some towels.”

  “I walked,” she said simply.

  “On yer own?”

  “Yes.”

  Looking at the white set of her face, he decided that calling her a damn fool woman could wait, even though he felt sick at the thought of her out in the storm, unable to see more than the most basic outlines of things. He got the towels for her, keeping back one to blot at his own head, which appeared to be bleeding—damn that cat anyway, and himself having just climbed a treacherous elm two nights past to rescue him.

  “I was goin’ to have some tea. I’ll make ye some to take the chill out of ye.”

  “I’d prefer something stronger, if ye have it,” she said, head coming out of the thick folds of the towel like a woodland flower emerging from the soil. He noted that her customary brusqueness was absent. He poured a couple of inches of Connemara Mist into one of the crystal whiskey tumblers Pamela kept out on the sideboard, handed the tumbler to her and watched as she swallowed it down in one go. Apparently the woman was not in a sipping frame of mind.

  “Once more, if ye wouldn’t mind,” she said and held out her glass. Pat refilled it and, placing the bottle on the table, sat down across from her. She swallowed this one just as quickly and took a deep breath, her eyes hidden in the chancy light of the candles.